He said the airline has fewer frequencies between major airports to reroute or rebook travelers. "Although we've made schedule adjustments leading into the fall, our route system has not fully recovered - that will take time," Kasher said. Other airlines also faced a shortage of workers after encouraging thousands to take leave or buyouts at the height of the pandemic, only for travel demand to return faster than expected this summer. The airline trimmed its schedule after the summer to avoid further disruptions.
Staffing shortages fueled hundreds of cancellations and delays at Southwest over the summer.
American Airlines, which operates a large hub in Miami, in comparison, canceled 66 mainline flights, or 2% of its operation on Saturday and Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Spirit Airlines canceled 32 flights, 4% of its schedule. The Dallas-based airline canceled 1,019 flights on Sunday, 28% of its schedule, after canceling 808 flights on Saturday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. "And Teams are working to determine the best course of action to most quickly reset our network." "Right now, our Teams are working to protect our Crew network and prevent misconnects - both for our Crews and Customers - that would cause an even greater impact," he said.
Southwest's Kasher acknowledged to employees in his note Sunday that some crew members didn't have hotel rooms last night and said disruptions can quickly snowball as flight crews hit contractual and federal working limits. The airline said in a statement it expected to get close to normal operations by Sunday, but disruptions worsened. Southwest apologized to travelers for long customer service waits. Southwest's major destinations of Denver, Baltimore, Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway were among the hardest hit by the cancellations on Sunday.